Photoshop – Automate / Crop and Straighten Photos

I just love when I stumble across something that makes my life simpler or easier. In this case, it is a Photoshop feature that I was unaware of until recently.

I am in the process of scanning and editing my old baby photos from the late 1970s. The photos are pretty well stuck in their photo albums, making it difficult (if not impossible) to remove them without causing any damage. So instead of removing them, I have been scanning the entire page. This leaves me with a scan like this to work with:

I was then cropping each photo individually from the original scan and doing a Save As to begin my edits. Then, thanks to a Google search, I came across this quick automation feature in Photoshop. (I am using Photoshop CS3.)

  1. With the original scan of multiple photos open, go to File/Automate/Crop and Straighten Photos
  2. That’s it! Photoshop will automatically detect, crop, and straighten the photos from your scan. A new file is created for each of the cropped photos. (Please note that these new files are not saved to your computer until you manually do so.)

I have to say it does a pretty good job on the scans I have used it on so far. Here is a screen shot of the new files that were created from my original scan.

I am told that Photoshop Elements has a similar feature under the Image menu called “Divide Scanned Photos.”

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4 Responses

  1. Erin says:

    OOh, great tip, thanks!!

  2. Tim says:

    Thanks!
    It just occurred to me that there must be an automated way to do this. Did the google, and bam. Thanks for sharing!

  3. Sondra says:

    Awesome tip! I am also scanning multiple pics at one time and was not looking forward to separating them. My old scanner, that is not Vista friendly, would separate them itself. Thanks for sharing!

  4. LeeAnn says:

    Thanks so much for the tutorials. Would LOVE it if you would do more of them.

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